When lighting for motion pictures, it is desirable to modify the light for a given shot to obtain a desired lighting effect which gives the film its “look” or aesthetic. Lighting configurations are used for the filming of images to create a scene in a film, as light is the fundamental agent of imprinting these images on the film or the digital camera sensor and on the viewer's eye. These configurations mostly involve the enhancing, creation, or modification of darkness in various ambient low light conditions, whether artificial or natural shadow in alleyways, or a night street rendered in a large film studio. These configurations also may include the manipulation and enhancement of light derived from a variety of light sources, which may be natural, artificial or a combination of both, such as a large spotlight on an actor playing a role in the Sonora Desert.
A scene in a motion picture is lit by adding, shining, or directing light onto the area that makes up the frame of the scene being filmed, the “shot”. As indicated, lighting set-up may also involve taking light away from said frame or section of this area, or blocking light so it does not light the filmed space, which may be an actor who inhabits this filmed space. Taking select portions of light away from the area being filmed can be achieved by placing objects between the light source and the actor in the filmed space. This technique is known among cinematographers and photographers as “sculpting the light”.
One way to sculpt light is to place a light diffusion device between the light source and the subject being filmed. The light diffusion device may be built from a rigid metal or fiberglass frame which holds a translucent fabric or plastic sheet varying in quality, color and opacity depending on the desired lighting result. These sundry diffusion devices soften the light in different ways, frequently making the light source less obvious. This is desirable, but if the lighting is soft throughout the entire field of view the shot may look too flat without definition.
Lighting set-ups on a film set will often involve refining and enhancing the light source to increase or decrease visual definition of the subject as well as the surrounding area of the depicted image by creating shadows for contrast of light intensity, depth of field, and suggestion of perspective. Whenever possible all levels of light quantity are controlled within the composed area seen by the cinematographer in each shot through the camera lens. This will create what the viewer eventually sees, whether it be on a cinema screen or a high definition monitor. Every image is lit using this technique so that each cinematographer or lighting director can achieve the desired image and scene, whether for film, video, art photography or theatrical lighting.
A typical movie-style lighting set-up will often begin with a large light fixture that produces what is known as a “hard light”. The hard light often starts as a bare bulb and a convex mirror reflector that directs the light to pass through a glass lens, the lens often having a circular pattern. This type of lens is called a Fresnel lens. It has a pattern of concentric rings with varying angles that form the glass lens which focuses the initial beam of light at maximum intensity. A variety of other lens patterns are often used to change the spread of the light beam, but they reduce the intensity of the hard light, which is not always desirable.
A useful tool to enhance this hard light is an item known as a “fabric egg crate”. A typical fabric egg crate is a single layer square grid formed of sets of continuous vertical and horizontal fabric strips. Commonly, the strips are manufactured of a flexible material such as polyester ribbon. These fabric strips intersect perpendicularly. An egg crate used for lighting is invariably patterned in this standard grid.
A light source passes through this plurality of square or rectangular cells, creating a soft wash of light that lies upon the filmed space. The usual cell depth is 3″ but cell widths, and thus cell volumes, may vary depending on desired effect. Prior art fabric egg crate devices are commonly referred to as 50 degrees, 40 degrees and 30 degrees. For example, a 50 degree egg crate has dimensions of 3.59″ wide×3.59″ long×3″ deep. The “degree” refers to the angle at which the diffused light will project or “fall off” into darkness after it passes through the egg crate. Light traveling in a straight line through the egg crate will reach the subject, while light that is spilling into the peripheral fields will be cut out of the image, hence “sculpting the light”. While square and rectangular cells in egg crates designed for the specific purpose described above result in loss of light intensity, which is not always desirable, such prior art egg crates have been accepted among light directors and cinematographers as the best available option for the application described above, as no other designs have been available. The only prior art designs manufactured for film industry use provide continuous vertical and horizontal strips of malleable fabric that form a uniform standard four-sided cell grid.